


Summer Sun and Winter Moon

by Wolf_of_Lilacs



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Abandoned Work - Unfinished and Discontinued, Alternate Universe - Canon, Alternate Universe - East of the Sun and West of the Moon Fusion, Angst and Humor, Book 5 - Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Depression, F/F, F/M, Gen, M/M, Magical Creatures, No character bashing, Politics, Quasi-Redemption, the underage is slight to nonexistent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-11
Updated: 2019-01-13
Packaged: 2019-08-22 11:50:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 5
Words: 17,201
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16597328
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wolf_of_Lilacs/pseuds/Wolf_of_Lilacs
Summary: "Something is different about his nightmares tonight. He's not sure if he's dreaming, but he knows he's no longer awake." And so goes Harry's fifth year.(Voldemort is pissed, Harry is depressed, and someone plots.)





	1. Part I: 1

**Author's Note:**

> I decided to repost everything I had written.

It has been a dull, forgettable, midsummer evening; no cure for his ennui in sight, nothing to break the stifling monotony. The fire burns low and lethargically in the grate, throwing the shadows in wilted patterns against the stained and pealing wallpaper. (He keeps meaning to redecorate, but other things always seem to take precedence.)

 

Naturally, it's rather too hot for a fire, but Nagini insisted—loudly and repeatedly, like a child in the throes of malcontent. Voldemort glares over at her now, where she lies in loose, sleepy coils on the ratty hearthrug.

 

Every evening since his resurrection has resembled this one, in whole or in part. He had expected more—had craved even the possibility of comfortable boredom, before.

 

(He craved so many things, before.)

 

Now, he aches for more. Merely… more. Proof upon proof, perhaps, that he lives, is bound once again in flesh and bone and ill-gotten blood.

 

Although there is plenty to deal with beyond the current, empty moment. The boy's escape, for example, following that ridiculous spectacle between their wands has put his plans—half-formed though they'd been while in Pettigrew's tender care—back months. And while Dumbledore's public humiliation is endlessly amusing to witness, the old fool has made his own plans and cares little about his image, for his legend has staying power beyond anything official titles can grant him; it is a position for which Tom Riddle always yearned, and which Voldemort remains determined to achieve.

 

For tonight, Voldemort should find value in the quietness. He should—

 

The monotony is abruptly broken by a summons, startling him out of his bitterly nostalgic reverie.

 

"This had better be important, Lucius," he snaps, Apparating quickly within the Malfoys' drawing room, smashing through their wards as if they weren't there at all. He feels inordinate amusement at this. Oh, what a wonder to have paltry, petty things to take pleasure in.

 

"Oh, I'd say it is, my lord," Lucius replies, bowing in an appropriately deferential greeting. Voldemort still finds satisfaction in the humbling of such proud figures, even after so many decades.

 

"I shall be the judge of that. Speak!"

 

"Potter is likely facing expulsion for casting a Patronus in a Muggle area." Malfoy smiles. "A rather silly reason to be expelled, if you ask me, but who am I to understand the workings of the mind of a stupid boy like that?"

 

Voldemort replies through gritted teeth. "I did not ask for your opinion on the boy," he sighs. He has a thousand responses, ranging from a terse declaration that the boy is his alone to insult (revealing and ridiculous) to an annoyed reprimand about the unappreciated value of his time (especially ridiculous, given his prior boredom). He settles on: "Is there any reason of which you are aware that the boy would have for attempting such a thing?"

 

"It was no attempt, my lord. He has been able to conjure a corporeal Patronus for over a year, according to my son." A muscle in Lucius's cheek twitches.

 

That is truly impressive, he allows. "Were there, perhaps, dementors about?" It is a logical theory, if unlikely. No one in the Ministry has the guts for such a stunt, as far as he knows. Then again—

 

"Lucius, you fool. What or who have you missed?"

 

Malfoy stiffens. "I don't know what you mean—"

 

"Potter is impulsive and loyal to a fault, but even he would not be so needlessly showy." From what he's gathered during their two brief meetings, at least.

 

"Go back to the Ministry and find out anything you can. The boy will not be expelled. Dumbledore has power enough yet to prevent it. And if there were indeed dementors, well…" He bares his teeth. "His story will withstand scrutiny."

 

Lucius wisely scurries from the room. Voldemort Disapparates, returns to his armchair and his ennui, and resumes brooding. If Potter is to be expelled, there will be an outcry, even with the Ministry's smearing. The public holds on to its heroes, and the boy is their darling—of a nostalgic sort, first and foremost.

 

Hearing the prophecy in full, then, remains imperative.

 

Lucius will not dare summon him twice in one evening. There will be no more news tonight. Voldemort rises stiffly to go to bed.

 

In hindsight, he should have remained seated a few moments more.

 

The window shatters (impossible! He had charmed it against such things), the jagged shards of glass heaving inward on a stream of icy wind.

 

What in Merlin's name? No one should be able to pass his wards. He turns, wand held aloft, and stops dead at what he sees.

 

There is a fucking _troll_ standing in his study.

 

"How did you get in here?" he asks blankly.

 

"Easily," it replies, striding forward, silvery gown flowing about its—her, likely, but it's hard to tell with trolls—feet. "I thought it was time I paid you a visit, you see."

 

"What do you want?" he snarls, his lips drawing back.

 

"A number of things," she purrs—there's no other word for the rasping in her throat. Her voice is gravelly in the manner of her kind, but her accent is like no troll's he's met previously: her consonants are lighter than usual. And her magic! (Like nothing he knew trolls to have.) Her magic is cold. The scent of snow and frozen things permeates the room, and he shivers beneath his thin robe.

 

"Such as?" The fire has gone out, leaving the room in near-darkness except for a single candle still burning on a side table. Nagini hisses in wordless discomfort and proceeds to tangle herself about his ankles, rather cat-like.

 

"Well now, let's not be hasty," the troll murmurs. "I'd most certainly like you to cease moving forward with the parts of your plot that involve using my people and our unfortunate kin as cannon fodder, but I'm realistic enough to know that to be a rosy fantasy."

 

"They will join me of their own accord," he protests, unconvincing even to himself.

 

"Of course." She comes closer, the cold deepening with each step. "And once you are finished with them, they will be cast aside, just as beaten down as they have been for centuries." She reaches forward and grasps his wrist, extricating the wand from his slackened grip to toss it casually over her shoulder. It lands with a faint thump that should have roused him to action, but he is frozen in place. Her fingers are rough against his delicate skin.

 

"You dare?" he rasps. No one dared touch him, not when he tended to lose his tenuous patience. No one had succeeded in disarming him in years, for that matter. What power is this?

 

"Quite a fight you gave me there," she says, almost kindly. He grinds his teeth and tries to wriggle free. "None of that, now." With that, even lethargic movements become impossible.

 

"I will give you nothing," Voldemort says.

 

"That's all right. I didn't expect you to." She smiles contentedly. "Which is why I'm taking you with me tonight—you and as many of the bits of your soul as possible. Really unfortunate about the one that poor, brave boy destroyed two years ago."

 

The prospect of his abduction disturbs him, but— "What the devil are you talking about? What do you mean, 'destroyed'?"

 

"Exactly as I said," she replies. "My, my. Did your minions tell you nothing of what occurred during your sabbatical?"

 

Sabbatical? Oh, she would pay for such flippancy, once she answered his questions. "Liar," he hisses, but he knows she isn't lying. His abilities have never failed him before.

 

She gazes at him pityingly. "Enough talk. I do not wish to linger here."

 

This is wrong. Rather than being defeated by Dumbledore or by a boy prophesied to have the power to vanquish him, he is being taken against his will by a _troll_. "Wait!"

 

"Yes?" Her craggy brow furrows in impatience.

 

"A wager." The words are cloying. Dealing with lesser creatures is a humiliation of the lowest order, but abduction by the same is far worse to contemplate.

 

"A wager?" She sounds moderately interested.

 

"I will give your kin what you ask, if you let me continue my other plans for conquest." Although everything else pales in comparison to acquiring the thrice-damned prophecy. What’s a small concession to giants and trolls for her appeasement?

 

"How good of you," she purrs, "but I don't believe a word. I require insurance of sorts, so that you will keep your side of the bargain."

 

"What sort?" He knows he'll hate it, whatever it is.

 

Her expression is one of unbridled excitement. "You shall spend every night for a year and a day with your greatest enemy. You may not speak. You will not kill him. You will not reveal yourself to him in any way. And during the day, you will be unable to tell a soul why your plans have changed. And to give you even more incentive, I shall keep your unfortunate scraps of soul."

 

"Not Nagini," he says hurriedly, the manufactured lethargy still restraining his rage. "There would be too many questions."

 

"Fine," she agrees easily—too easily. "Oh, and if you think that I will be unable to locate your horcruxes, then you are very wrong indeed. I found you, therefore I can find them."

 

"How will you ensure my silence during the day?" he asks—sighs, really. He shouldn't be so resigned. He shouldn't, he shouldn't—

 

"Like this." She presses a stiff finger to the hollow of his throat. A terrible, freezing pain blossoms at her touch. When she pulls away, she leaves something behind. He reaches up, afraid—yet still incredulous—of what he will find.

 

His fingers meet something small and freezing, imbedded into the skin of his throat. "What is this?" he snaps.

 

She ignores him. "If you try to speak of what has occurred here to any of your minions... Well, you'll find out very soon, I suspect."

 

"Fine.” His fingers itch with the curses he cannot cast upon her. “How will I meet 'my greatest enemy?’"

 

"In a realm of dreams that I have constructed, naturally. And remember, one mistake there and I win you for as long as we both shall live."

 

"And when I meet your terms?" he asks. He _will_ meet her terms. Lord Voldemort does not fail.

 

She smiles indulgently. "Then you will be free of me, but my people shall have everything they deserve." She walks casually away from him; she fears him not. "Truth be told, you lose, even if you win our little game." With that final cryptic statement, she disappears in another gust of frigid wind. The broken window repairs itself with a merry tinkle of shards as she goes.

 

:Master,: Nagini hisses. :What was that?:

 

:Everything has changed,: he tells her. :Everything has changed, my sweet, and not for the better.:

 

:I don't like change,” she says and returns to her spot on the hearth.

 

:Nor do I,: he replies ruefully, summoning his discarded wand back to his hand. Exhaustion accosts him then, and he embraces it gratefully. There is nothing more to be done tonight. :Good night, my sweet,: he sighs, and heads off to bed.


	2. Part I: 2

Harry Potter—a hero to some, a fool to others, just Harry to himself—stares fixedly out his bedroom window.

 

It's a warm summer night—downright balmy in comparison to the sweltering day. Privet Drive is quiet, illuminated by the ghostly orange glow of a lone street lamp. There is no evidence that shadowy apparitions attacked he and Dudley blocks from here mere hours ago. Nothing dares disturb this epitome of suburbia, nothing at all.

 

Harry knows better. The people slumbering fitfully in this house among a row of identical houses know better, too. They wish they didn't. He feels the same.

 

Hedwig, Harry's ever-loyal snowy owl, swoops through the window, startling him from his contemplations. He watches mutely as she settles on her perch, preening carefully and tucking her head under a wing to sleep. She sleeps a bit like a cat, he notes with the faintest flicker of amusement. Her hunting done for the evening, what left is there to do, except to return to him?

 

Unlike Hedwig, he doesn't want to sleep.

 

The pain and exhaustion from carrying Dudley's not inconsiderable dead weight for two blocks pulls insistently at his joints. The residual shivering left from the Dementors he'd eventually chased away—Dementors, here!—is still present. He'd thrown out Ron and Hermione's birthday cakes the day they'd arrived, else he would have had chocolate to warm him.

 

Truthfully, he wants nothing more than to sleep. But a monster stalks his nightmares, wherein Cedric Diggory dies over and over again, and Harry is never able to save him… ("Whose Cedric, your boyfriend?" Dudley gleefully taunted.) On nights when he dreams of other things, he finds himself in a plain stone corridor that he's never seen before, then wakes up with his scar faintly prickling. Eerie, at the very least. … Bloody creepy, at best.

 

The only sounds that disturb the silent house are occasional grunting snores. The evening's excitement is past and forgotten—may it never be mentioned again, so help you God. But Harry cannot forget… wishes he could. Expelled from Hogwarts, then not expelled but suspended and facing charges, then told to leave the house because he's a danger to the family, the                                                          n ordered with equal disdain to stay put. And during all of this, he is never told why. (Why did Aunt Petunia get a Howler like that? Why is he at Privet Drive to begin with, especially after Voldemort's return?)

 

The time on his alarm clock reads five minutes past midnight. Wednesday has become Thursday without his noticing. Days keep passing one into the next—frames of a film flickering by both too swiftly and too slowly for him to see, and he is left here alone: Helpless, afraid, betrayed by Ron's and Hermione's silence. What they must be thinking now, wherever they are. Together (at the Burrow?), the way their letters sound…

 

The night remains the same, unchanged in the moments he's spent staring out into it. His bed is suddenly too inviting to resist, and he curls up under a blanket. He buries his face in his pillow, even though this never keeps the monster of his nightmares away… ("Bow to death, Harry." That grating voice, brought so vividly to mind by the Dementors, lurks at the edge of his consciousness, waiting for his dreams to pounce...)

 

As sleep enfolds him, anger stirs. It's muted, as though it belongs to someone far off, but fierce and consuming, an immolation. Too relaxed now to be roused, Harry sinks into sleep and the rage of someone else.

 

*

 

Something is different about his nightmares tonight. He's not sure if he's dreaming, but he knows he's no longer awake. Whatever this is, the darkness is so thick that it doesn't matter if his eyes are open or closed. It's not an icy darkness like what Dementors bring… more like a shroud meant as protection and comfort. (Or perhaps to hide something, but he has a strong feeling he's not the one being hidden. That's never been how his nightmares work. The monster can hide, while he is exposed.)

 

He's lying down still, even in this not-quite-dream. It feels like a bed—larger and less springy than his mattress at the Dursleys'. It reminds him far more of his four-poster in the Gryffindor dormitory. He reaches out a hand to feel for the divide in the hangings—hopefully to let in some light from a window, but no cloth meets his questing fingers. Not a canopied four-poster, then. This is as much illumination as he's going to get, unless he can find a light switch or candle.

 

He throws off the blankets—multiple blankets, all of them soft as satin—and swings his feet over the side to begin exploring.

 

As Harry stands, he hears a rustle of sheets from the other side of the bed. The mattress must be ridiculously wide; he doesn't feel the telltale dip of another person's weight. He stiffens. "Who's there?" he says into the blackness. His voice is terribly loud in the silent chamber. It's a large room, he guesses, though large in the manner of the Dursleys' sitting room rather than the Hogwarts Great Hall.

 

The other person doesn't reply. The rustle is repeated, followed by a surprised intake of breath.

 

"Are you actually here?" Harry asks.

 

No answer. Perhaps these noises are the terrifying portion of the dream that he has been anticipating, and he is alone with his treacherous thoughts.

 

Deciding to put off his exploration, Harry tentatively sits back down and reaches across the bed. His hand brushes against the purported other person's hand, and the brief touch shudders through him, neither unpleasant nor pleasurable. He pulls back quickly. From the quiet rustle of cloth, the other person has done the same. "Sorry," he says awkwardly. "I'm really not alone here, then."

 

His companion huffs a laugh. Harry stands again, walking until he reaches the nearest wall, then following it around the room's perimeter. There is no other furniture besides the large bed in the middle, and he can find no evidence of doors or curtain-covered windows or even an empty torch bracket. It's as though this room was made for darkness alone. Just his luck. Trapped in a room in his head with a stranger. Some fucked-up dream thing this is. Unless—

 

Unless it's some new and more terrible Voldemort dream…

 

In dreams, he's come to know, speaking the monster's name will make him appear, so best to keep his questions vague. "Do I know you?" he tries, not expecting any sort of response.

 

His companion taps twice.

 

"Once for yes, twice for no?" he clarifies.

 

One tap. Well, he'll just assume that's for yes. So, again, trapped in a room in his head with a stranger—or an uncharacteristically quiet Voldemort. Damn it all.

 

With nothing better to do, Harry returns to the bed and lays back against the pile of down pillows. Beds are for sleeping in. Who is he to complain? He'll take this over replays of the graveyard—each more twisted than the last—any day.

 

He dreams—a normal sort—this time. He's walking down the rough stone corridor once more, only now a cold breeze nips incessantly at his heels, the torches guttering far more than usual. All the while, the anger simmers.

 

Harry is awakened in the morning by the sound of Petunia pushing a plate containing half a grapefruit and a meager slice of bread through the cat flap. "Are you locking me in here?" he asks blearily.

 

"No," she replies shortly.

 

"You don't want me coming downstairs?" he tries.

 

"I don't care what you do. Just don't leave the house and bring any more dangerous nonsense down on our heads."

 

"Who was that Howler from?" he asks.

 

"Never you mind, and don't ask questions!" she snaps. He hears her light footsteps recede down the corridor. Well, he muses, stepping around the food he has no intention of eating and heading to the bathroom, the whole exchange was unusually friendly, for her.

 

The next couple days pass in a similar fashion. Harry stays in his room—voluntarily—and Petunia brings him food that he picks at, then sets aside. He skims the Daily Prophets—delivered each morning by a large barn owl with a superiority complex and a tendency to flirt with an increasingly annoyed Hedwig—for any mention of suspicious, Voldemort-sounding activities. (As has been true through the entire summer, nothing stands out.) And each night, he finds himself in the dark room with the stranger.

 

"Have we ever met?" he asks on the second night.

 

A pause, then a single tap.

 

Admittedly, this doesn't help him narrow down the list of possible suspects. He's Harry Potter, after all. He's met a hell of a lot more people than is good for anyone. (And yes, it is likely a new-fangled recurring dream, designed by his subconscious to further his nightmares through frustration and uncertainty.)

 

Despite his suspicions a day ago, he is fairly certain that his companion can't be Voldemort. He feels no impending sense of doom, and they don't seem to care particularly about what he does.

 

By Friday morning, no new letters have arrived. Considering how the summer has played out, this isn't the least bit surprising. Heaven forbid he be told anything relevant about his own future… Are they just going to leave him here till the day of his hearing, without any sort of preparation? Really?

 

With a smirk, he composes three identical notes, one each to Ron, Hermione, and Sirius, with a brief demand for any information they have. "Peck them until they start writing long, interesting letters, okay girl? Don't come back until they give you something satisfactory," he tells Hedwig. She hoots in what he takes to be affirmation and swoops out the window. Harry rubs his hands together. Now maybe he'll get some results.

 

Hedwig, however, does not return, which leaves him even lonelier than ever.

 

On the third night, he finally thinks to ask, "Are you a wizard?"

 

A single tap. There is no hesitation this time.

 

"Do you know who I am?" Keeping the conversation going in whatever way possible might alleviate some boredom, here.

 

Another immediate single tap. This one has far more force behind it than the previous one, as though his companion is less than pleased by Harry's presence. Speak for yourself, Harry thinks in annoyance.

 

"What exactly are we doing here?" Harry says. He doesn't receive an answer; in fact, his question isn't acknowledged at all.

 

"Can you speak?" he tries, wondering if his companion has tired of tonight's one-sided conversation.

 

Two taps. Well then…

 

"Can you speak outside of this room?"

 

One tap.

 

On the off chance this is real and they meet when they're awake, he tries another line of questioning. "Do you know that Vol—that You-know-Who is back?"

 

If it is Voldemort—and how could it be? after three perfectly peaceful nights, then Harry has no idea what his answer would be.

 

There's a definite reaction to this. When he starts to say "Voldemort" (he berates himself silently for his forgetfulness), his companion stands abruptly but relaxes when he switches to the not-name everyone prefers.

 

One tap.

 

"So, you believe Dumbledore and me?" Harry asks in moderate excitement. Although this is his dream and being believed is somewhat probable.

 

Two taps.

 

Huh? Does he have independent confirmation or something? How convoluted can this get?

 

But his companion refuses to answer any more questions after that. From a violent tugging of the blankets, Harry guesses he has turned his back to him and drawn them over his head.

 

On Saturday afternoon—the third full day of Harry's self- and Dursley-imposed exile—Uncle Vernon pays him a visit. He strides into Harry's bedroom, attired in his best suit and looking quite smug and self-important. "We're going out," he proclaims.

 

"Sorry?" Harry tears his gaze away reluctantly from the ceiling, which he'd been staring at blankly for the past hour. A smudge of dirt in the corner had been contorting with impressive agility. He doesn't want to miss anything.

 

"We—that is to say, your aunt, Dudley, and I—are going out."

 

"Fine," Harry mumbles, returning his gaze to the smudge of dirt and mystery once more. It seems to have taken the shape of a lumbering troll, club in hand.

 

"You are not to leave your bedroom while we are away," Vernon continues.

 

"Okay." The troll sticks its tongue out at him.

 

"You are not to touch the television, the stereo, or any of our possessions."

 

"Right." Not that he had a burning desire to do so. The troll continues on its plodding way.

 

"You are not to steal food from the kitchen."

 

"Okay." Back to old patterns, then. They don't care if he starves, would likely prefer it if he did. The troll gives him the finger in farewell and becomes a smudge of dirt again.

 

"I am going to lock your door."

 

"You do that." The smudge curls up into a smaller smudge for a nap.

 

Vernon glares suspiciously but makes no more comment and stomps out the door. The key turns in the lock with a final click. Harry buries his face in his pillow, inhaling the scent of his own unwashed hair, and listens to Vernon walk down the stairs, the front door close, and the car doors slam. If he were in a different state of mind, he might find all this enjoyable. He can pick the damn lock easily enough these days.

 

The empty house is almost louder without the Dursleys in it. Intermittent creaks and gurgles disturb the silence. Then—

 

Something crashes downstairs. "Damn," someone groans. "This always happens to me." A woman's voice, completely unfamiliar.

 

What the fuck? If it's burglars down there, he thinks apathetically, then they mustn't know someone's still here. Anyway, what does he care? Then again, if they are burglars, they are doing a pretty half-arsed job.

 

His lock clicks and the door swings inward, but there is no one standing in the hall to see him sprawled here in misery.

 

Magic! It has to be! Harry scrambles out of bed—grabbing his wand from where it sits upon his bedside table—and tiptoes into the darkened hall.

 

"Would someone give us a light? I can't see worth a damn in here." It's the woman's voice, the same person who waxed so eloquent about the crash.

 

A wand light flares, throwing the faces of the intruders into stark relief. Harry eyes them warily from the top of the stairs, his wand held defensively.

 

"Ah, there you are, Potter," a man growls. "Put that down before you poke someone's eye out." It's Mad-Eye Moody, looking as grizzled as his Pollyjuiced double, but with half the evil and twice the creepiness. (Barty Crouch was Kissed, so this definitely isn't him, and Harry doubts Voldemort would have the same trick played twice.)

 

"Your eyes would match if I did," Harry retorts.

 

Moody barks a laugh, lopsided mouth twisting into a delighted smile, which does little to make his scarred face any less horrific. "Good one, kid. I like you already."

 

"There's no need for that, Harry," another familiar voice says. Remus Lupin edges past Moody and the unknown woman and stands directly in front of the bottom step. "Come down so we can see you."

 

"Professor?" Harry croaks.

 

"Just Remus, Harry—Lupin, if that's easier. God knows I'm no professor these days." He looks a bit wistful at this, then gestures at the people behind him. "We're all here to relocate you, Harry. The sooner you come down, the sooner we can leave."

 

("Good riddance to that," Moody grumbles.)

 

Harry lowers his wand and pads down the stairs, still cautious. "And no one thought it would be a good idea to tell me beforehand? The Dursleys are gone. That was your doing, wasn't it? Or maybe just some fantastic luck?" He can't quite explain his annoyance, only that everything is always sprung on him, necessarily and otherwise.

 

"The lawn competition was my idea," the young woman he first heard speak upstairs says with a smirk, her spiky violet hair lightening to lavender. "Too bad we won't see their faces when they find out it's fake."

 

Too bad indeed. Photographs of their expressions would liven up his wall... except he doesn't want to see their faces any more than he has to. Harry gives her a thumbs-up, and she beams. "So, who are you?" he asks peevishly.

 

"This is Alastor Moody," Lupin says.

 

"We've never met, Potter, so forget everything you think you know," Moody tells him, his magical eye pointed fixedly at the ceiling. "Goddammit," he adds, stumping into the kitchen, Summoning a glass from one of the cupboards, and filling it from the tap. "Eye keeps sticking since that scum wore it." He pops it out with a squelching sound and plops it into the glass, where it spins madly. Harry feels dizzy just by looking at it.

 

"Like 'constant vigilance'?" Harry calls after him. "Should I forget that?"

 

"No, never forget that," Moody snaps. "And get your wand out of your back pocket. Hasn't anyone ever taught you elementary wand safety? You could lose a buttock if that thing ignites."

 

"Who do you know that's lost a buttock?" the purple-haired woman asks, mirroring Harry's morbid curiosity.

 

"Never you mind." Moody turns his attention back to his rapidly spinning eye.

 

"He's never met anyone," the purple-haired woman says to Harry, winking.

 

"I heard that!" Moody harrumphs.

 

Harry blinks, a bit disconcerted by the ease of it all. Lupin continues the introductions as if nothing out of the ordinary has occurred. "This is Nymphadora Tonks."

 

"Just Tonks," the purple-haired woman snaps, grimacing. "If your mother named you Nymphadora, you wouldn't go by it, either."

 

"So, it's just the three of you, then?" Harry says in relief.

 

"There are a couple more people escorting you, but we didn't want to overwhelm you. They're waiting outside," Lupin replies gently.

 

"How considerate of you," Harry mutters.

 

"Well, we've wasted enough time," Moody interjects, tipping his head back and re-inserting his eye. "Get packed and we'll be on our merry way."

 

"Merry way to where?" Harry protests, thinking in horror of packing the mess his room has become since his enthusiastic embrace of apathy.

 

"You'll see soon enough," Lupin assures him.

 

"I'll give you a hand," Tonks says brightly, hopping past him up the stairs. He follows, resigned. "Well now," she says as they enter his room. "This is something else." She's impressed… What the hell?

 

"An idle mind," he mutters, throwing a pile of clothes into his trunk. Tonks doesn't finish the aphorism, doesn't give any sign that she's understood.

 

Why did she offer to help him, anyway? Couldn't resist a moment alone with the Boy Who Lived, probably.

 

"A spell could speed this up a bit," she says after the two of them make painfully slow progress during several, painfully awkward moments.

 

"Yeah?" he asks, thinking that she could have suggested this ages ago and saved them both a lot of discomfort.

 

"Yeah!" she confirms, brandishing her wand in a broad, sweeping motion and intoning "PACK!"

 

His remaining possessions haphazardly leap into the trunk, just as disorganized with her spell as they had been when she put them in by hand. "You're kidding," Harry sighs. "The incantation is 'pack'."

 

Tonks rolls her eyes. "My mum can make it look much better," she admits, a slight bitter edge to her voice. "Now this, on the other hand…" She wanders over to his mirror—slightly cracked, like most everything in this room—and scrunches up her face until her hair abruptly turns bubble-gum pink. "This she can't do."

 

"How did you do that?" Harry asks listlessly.

 

"I'm a Metamorphmagus. I can change my appearance at will. Helped a hell of a lot in Auror training."

 

"You’re an Auror?" Harry asks, somewhat interested despite himself. The awkwardness fades a little.

 

"Only just finished training, actually," Tonks says.

 

"Can you learn to be a Metamorphmagus?" he asks, not really wanting to do it, except that being an Auror is his only real option for a career.

 

She shakes her head. The disappointment he feels surprises him. Well…

 

"You wouldn't mind hiding that scar, I expect," she says kindly.

 

"What the hell is taking you two so long?" they hear Moody shout from downstairs. "We need to go!"

 

Tonks looks a bit sheepish. "Well, come on, then. We're flying, by the way."

 

"Oh... Right." Harry picks up his Firebolt and follows her moodily down the stairs, his trunk and Hedwig's cage floating behind them.

 

"All right," Lupin said, smiling at Harry in the way one would at an anxious animal one was trying to calm, "there are two more people keeping watch outside. We're going to Disillusion you, go out and meet them, then fly to our destination."

 

Harry nods, bristling at Lupin's overly gentle treatment.

 

"Wow, that's a Firebolt, isn't it?" Tonks says, admiring the broom in Harry's hand.

 

He nods, somewhat unnecessarily.

 

"I'm still riding a Comet Two-Sixty," she continues.

 

"No more time for chitchat," Moody snaps. "Potter, stand there." He gestures at a spot in the middle of the kitchen, then raises his wand.

 

Harry stiffens unconsciously, all the while reminding himself again and again that no, this the real Mad-Eye Moody, and yes, he's nuts, but not out to kill him.

 

Right?

 

Who can tell, really.

 

Lupin notices, moving forward to perhaps put a stop to the proceedings, then falls back at Harry's embarrassed shake of the head.

 

Moody taps him rather heavily, and the sensation of an egg cracking over his head follows. He glances down at himself, noting that he now resembles the polished appliance behind him—both in color and texture. He rubs his arms to make certain he's still there, and everything feels as it should. When he moves, his appearance changes with his surroundings. Rather like a chameleon, maybe.

 

"Not bad," Tonks gushes.

 

"It's adequate," Moody growls. "If yours aren't this good, then you shouldn't have been passed."

 

"Oh, go to hell, Mad-Eye," she snaps back. "My Disillusionment Charms are second to none."

 

Their banter is pleasantly distracting.

 

"Time to go," Lupin sighs, getting between them. "We shouldn't keep Kingsley and Emmeline waiting any longer than necessary. They did volunteer to wait outside, out of the goodness of their hearts."

 

"I blackmailed Emmeline," Moody mutters. "She owes me for… something."

 

"What?" Tonks asks eagerly.

 

"Never you mind." Moody checks his watch. "Lupin's right. We've spent too long in here." He gives one final, rather appreciate glance around the kitchen, his magical eye spinning sickeningly. "These Muggles are wary. I like that."

 

"Way too clean, if you ask me," Tonks disagrees. "It's almost unnatural."

 

"Oh, for heaven's sake," Lupin sighs. "Let's go! Harry, are you ready?"

 

"I'm ready," Harry hedges.

 

"Good. Out we go, then." The four of them file out the front door, Tonks floating Harry's trunk. Two people emerge from the shadows at the side of the house, several brooms in hand.

 

"Kingsley Shacklebolt and Emmeline Vance," Lupin says to Harry.

 

"Nice to meet you," Harry says.

 

"Likewise," Kingsley—a tall, bald, brown-skinned man with a golden hoop dangling from one ear—says. "I'd shake your hand, but we're in a hurry, and I can't actually see you. Good Disillusionment there, Mad-Eye," he tosses over his shoulder.

 

"Thanks," Mad-Eye growls.

 

Emmeline—taller than Tonks, with cropped black hair—sighs. "I second everything he just said. What took you so long?"

 

"A lot to pack in a short amount of time," Harry mutters.

 

"Ah," Emmeline says sympathetically. "I knew they should have let you know beforehand." Harry wishes fervently she and Kingsley had come inside, rather than Tonks and Moody.

 

As Tonks is strapping Harry's trunk and Hedwig's cage to her broom, Harry thinks of his dreams in the dark chamber. They hadn't shaken hands, either. It had been more of an inadvertent touch, a fluke, a mistake. Would he still have those dreams wherever they were going? Did he want to?

 

"All right," Lupin says as Tonks finishes her task. "Harry, always keep Nymphadora—"

 

"Tonks," she interjects. "How many times do I have to tell you?"

 

"Sorry. Always keep Tonks in sight. Mad-Eye will fly behind you, while the rest of us circle."

 

"Okay," Harry mutters.

 

They all mount their brooms. As Harry swings his leg over his Firebolt, he feels the first trickle of excitement. Flying was a dream—a good sort of dream, not the creepy ones he was used to—made real.

 

"There's the signal," Kingsley calls. Harry catches a glimpse of green wand sparks, somewhere off in the distance. They all kick off. His stomach swoops. He is leaving Privet Drive. He is going somewhere where he'll know about what's happening with Voldemort.

 

It's hope, he realizes, this strange warmth in his chest. He smiles. He relaxes. He flies.


	3. Part I: 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This and the following chapters were betaed by RedHorse some months ago. Thank you again, and I'm sorry this never ended up going anywhere. :((

The buoyant feeling goes the way of all good things. At Mad-Eye's behest, they keep rising higher and higher to "avoid those Muggles I think I saw looking up at us." (Whether he actually sees any such thing is kind of irrelevant, since he's the one in the lead.) Harry's fingers have gone completely numb on the steadily dampening handle of his broom. He wonders if they'll have to pry him from it with a crowbar or thaw him off next to a bonfire—he feels like he and the broom have become a single entity.

 

"Are you kidding?" Tonks shouts through chattering teeth. "We've changed course so many times now that we've been flying for an extra bloody half hour!" ("Probably more," she says to Harry out the side of her mouth.)

 

"Do you want to be seen?" Moody retorts. "I for one don't want to be pegged with another Statute of Secrecy violation. It was hard enough getting the last several straightened out! And Merlin knows Potter doesn't need another mark against him."

 

Tonks grumbles but subsides. The other three periodically swoop around them, clearly not enjoying this cross-country meandering any more than Harry is. The lights of the towns they pass are pinpricks at this height, beautiful in a gossamer, cobweb-like way. Harry is sick of them. Light is warmth, and he's terribly jealous of all the Muggles in their cars down below (though one of those cars could be the Dursleys, returning empty-handed to an empty house).

 

When they're at last flying over London—what else could it be, with congested streets like these?—Harry hears Moody call, "Okay. We land on three!" The brief count is interminable, and Harry drops perhaps faster than he should.

 

"Merlin, Potter! They said you were good, but that was seriously impressive." Kingsley alights next to him—far more cautiously—dismounting and wrapping his windbreaker snugly about his shoulders. Tonks, landing in front of them in a patch of loose dirt, nods in furious agreement, bouncing slightly on the balls of her feet and sneezing explosively.

 

"Thanks." Harry dips his head.

 

They've touched down in the middle of a street lined with large, ancient-looking houses. Loud music pounds from Number Thirteen, which sports several boarded-up windows—except for one at the very top through which several well-tended plants of ambiguous breed can be glimpsed—and a line of overflowing bins along its side.

 

"Used to be inhabited by a posher sort, according to my mum," Tonks says, observing Harry's curiosity. "Think they've turned most of these old houses into flats within the last thirty years."

 

Moody takes out what looks to be a cigarette lighter from his cloak and clicks it several times. The lights in the square go out, one per click. "Read that," he grunts, thrusting a slip of parchment under Harry's nose. "Read it and remember it."

 

Harry squints obligingly, thinking that it would have been rather easier to read before the lights went out. The handwriting is slanting and spidery and is strangely familiar, though he can't quite place where he's seen it before.

 

_The headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix may be found at number twelve Grimmauld Place, London._

 

"What's the Order of the—?” he begins.

 

"Not here, boy. Just think about what you've read." Moody jabs the parchment with his wand, and it goes up in a gout of flame, reduced to ashes in seconds.

 

Harry looks up, and his mouth drops open. A house is simply appearing between eleven and thirteen, forming itself out of thin air with nary a sound. He wonders if the people in the neighboring buildings notice anything at all as they are pushed aside to make way for the—if possible—even more ill-kept residence. Well then, this must be the missing number twelve. The proof in a number and mail slot is absent, however.

 

Lupin leads the way up the moss-covered steps and taps the door once with his wand. Harry hears the sound of several heavy chains clanking and clattering ominously as they slither free. The door swings inward with an almighty creak. The empty doorway yawns, a pitch-black gash in the darkened square.

 

"Inside," Moody growls. They go quickly, single-file. Before closing the door, Moody clicks the Put-Outer once more, sending spheres of light careening back to the streetlamps and briefly filling the antechamber with an orange glow. Then he closes the door with a final snap, plunging them into total darkness. Harry catches the edge of his jagged smirk. Moody creeps up behind him, his wand landing heavily on the top of Harry's head, causing an uncomfortable cascade of prickles. "There you go." He must have lifted the Disillusionment. … Doesn't really improve the effect.

 

"I think that was a bit overdramatic, don't you?" Tonks stage-whispers.

 

"The first impression is everything," Kingsley says dryly.

 

Harry wishes briefly that they'd never come to collect him, if this horror-film-worthy tableau is his welcome.

 

It only gets worse.

 

Someone lights a series of gas lamps, throwing the room into eerie blue relief. Dust is everywhere. A chandelier hangs in cobweb-wrapped repose. The heads of what Harry realizes with a sickening jolt are house-elves are mounted in a row upon the wall. An umbrella stand made from the leg of a large beast stands guard.

 

"That's a troll's leg, I believe," Lupin tells him, noticing the direction of his incredulous stare.

 

A door bangs open and Molly Weasley emerges. "About time you got here, thank god," she says breathlessly. "He's here. The meeting is about to start." Harry's entourage hurries past her down a steep flight of steps without a backward glance. "Harry!" Mrs. Weasley adds, giving him a tight hug. "It's so good to see you. Ron and Hermione are upstairs."

 

"But what is the meeting—?”

 

"They'll explain everything. Now run along!" She hurries back through the door she came. Harry sighs and goes up the flight of stairs she indicated.

 

Everything is seemingly placed for maximum sinister effect. There are serpent-head doorknobs: mouths wide, fangs dripping in the half-light. The elf heads have long growths of hair out their ears. A row of portraits lines the ground floor corridor, the ones left uncurtained glowering at him in disgust.

 

This… house… is either owned by dark wizards, or used for raising the dead, he decides. Pulpy horror all the way, like the kind he and Dudley used to watch through the crack in the sitting room door late at night when they were supposed to be in bed. There should be a bit more blood, though. Maybe ritual circles… torture implements, too. Voldemort would look right at home here.

 

He opens the door on the second landing and is immediately assaulted. Hermione hugs him hard enough to crack his ribs. "Harry!" she shrieks. He cannot breathe; his nose is buried in her bushy brown hair.

 

"Give him some space, Hermione," Ron says, coming up behind Harry and clapping him on the shoulder. Hermione backs away, smiling as brightly as he's ever seen.

 

Harry merely nods at both of them and stands stiffly, not knowing quite how to begin. A white blur swoops at him from the top of the wardrobe and lands on his shoulder with a painful pinch of talons. He sighs in relief and strokes Hedwig's ruffled feathers. "Hey there, girl."

 

"Oh, you must have so many questions!" Hermione says.

 

"Sure I do," he mutters. "Wouldn't you?"

 

They both glance away guiltily.

 

"It's good to see you," he tacks on awkwardly. It's a rote greeting. They never told him anything. Why should he be happy to see them? What do they expect, really?

 

"Hey, mate," Ron says. "Wanted to tell you everything, we did."

 

"We couldn't! Dumbledore made us promise we wouldn't," Hermione clarifies.

 

"Fine," Harry snaps. "You were both here, together, and I was stuck at Privet Drive all summer, apparently being watched—which you did know."

 

They nod, looking, if possible, guiltier still.

 

"I'll bet you've had loads of fun, probably had a good laugh at poor Harry and how no one thinks he deserves to know anything important about his own life, even though he's done way more than you ever have. Who faced Voldemort in the graveyard, saw him come out of that cauldron like a demon straight from hell?"

 

Ron flinches. "You did, mate, but—"

 

"Who went through that bloody Tournament? Who chased off all those Dementors and saved you? Who beat Tom Riddle? Who beat Quirrell and that bit of Voldemort sticking out of his head?" Harry is panting. His voice is steadily rising in volume. He makes no effort to lower it.

 

"Harry, for heaven's sake, no one is disputing any of that!" Hermione says firmly. "Stop taking it out on us."

 

"She's right," Ron cuts in. "We've both been begging them to bring you here for ages, but Dumbledore said you needed to stay where you were for safety reasons."

 

"And," Hermione says emphatically, "that we couldn't say anything in letters because owls could be intercepted."

 

"Right," Harry says. "But you'd think he could have bothered to tell me this himself."

 

They both nod—they've been doing a lot of that, Hermione hard enough that her hair bounces.

 

"I thought he cared more. Fuck him!" He feels strange and relieved, like he's peeled off a bandage, then burned it for good measure.

 

CRACK!

 

"That's it, mate," Fred Weasley says, appearing out of thin air near one of the beds. Hedwig startles at the noise and retreats to the wardrobe, where Ron’s owl, Pigwigeon, twitters.

 

"Let it all out," George agrees. "Don't think people fifty miles from here quite heard you."

 

"If Mum hears you cursing like that, though, she'll have kittens," Fred says with glee.

 

"If Dumbledore hears you cursing like that, he'll probably just twinkle disappointedly enough that you'll never do it again," George adds. "Never worked on us."

 

"I don't care," Harry grumbles. "They've left me alone all summer. What do they expect, that I'm perfectly content?"

 

"Er, no?" Ron volunteers. "Look at this." He shows Harry an angry red welt on his finger. "Didn't matter what we did. She just kept pecking us. Figured you were pretty, er, the opposite of content."

 

("Brilliant deduction there, Ron," Fred and George say, applauding. Ron glares.)

 

Harry feels savage satisfaction at the sight, followed by shame. "I'm sorry."

 

"You should be," Hermione says severely. "If we could have told you everything we knew, we would have. But we really don't know much at all…"

 

"Yeah, mate. All we've done is clean this old place every day and try to listen in on meetings. It's a nightmare!"

 

"I don't know," Fred says. "It's interesting, if you ask me. We've found all sorts of stuff—"

 

“—with potential value—"

 

“—for certain enterprises." The twins high-five.

 

"And we've tested one of our newest products: Extendable Ears!" George proudly shows Harry what looks to be a tangle of flesh-colored string.

 

"Ginny says your mum put an Imperturbable Charm on the kitchen door," Hermione tells them regretfully.

 

"Ah well." George puts the string away. "It was good while it lasted."

 

"Well, what have you found out?" Harry asks, curious despite himself.

 

"Not much," Ron admits. "You-Know-Who hasn't done anything openly, and there's some sort of thing the Order is guarding in shifts… but that's really about it."

 

"Right. That was probably me they were talking about."

 

"Oh." Ron's ears turn pink. "That makes sense."

 

"And what the hell is the Order, exactly?"

 

"The Order of the Phoenix. It's a secret organization Dumbledore founded during the last war to fight You-Know-Who," Hermione replies quickly. "It was just as secret then—"

 

The bedroom door is opened—not prefaced by a knock, and Ginny sweeps through. "Hey, Harry!" she says brightly.

 

"Hello," he croaks.

 

"I've been throwing Dungbombs at the kitchen door all afternoon," she says, turning to the twins. "Tonks says stuff will bounce off if it's charmed. It's regular Dungbomb acrobatics down there."

 

"Maybe we should try building in a counter to Imperturbable Charms in these," Fred muses, scrutinizing his Extendable Ear with a thoughtful frown.

 

"Might interfere with the Amplifying Charms," George guesses.

 

"Ugh, get out," Ron snaps.

 

"Right you are, little bro," George laughs, patting Ron on the shoulder condescendingly. He and Fred Disapparate with another deafening crack.

 

"They've Apparated everywhere since they passed their tests," Ron tells Harry with a shudder. "Drives Mum completely spare, but, well, doesn't take much these days since Percy…"

 

Normally, Harry would have asked what Ron meant, but he feels a bit vindictive still. Instead he turns to Hermione. "Who all's in the Order?" he asks. (He just catches Ron's disappointed frown, but thinks little of it.)

 

"Oh, a bunch of people we don't know," she says. "Some Aurors like Tonks—she's entertaining—and we've seen Professor McGonagall and Professor Snape."

 

"Snape?" Harry sputters. "Are you joking?"

 

"No way," Ginny groans. "Can't mistake him for anyone, now can you?"

 

"Lupin and Moody, too, right?" Harry adds. "And Emmeline Vance and Kingsley."

 

"See? You know some people we don't," Hermione enthuses. "Some of them stay to dinner, but most leave right when the meetings end. Kingsley has, I think, but he hasn't talked to us much at all."

 

"Right," Harry says.

 

There is a loud knock on the door, which is then forcefully opened. "Dinner!" Mrs. Weasley says, sticking her head inside. "It's in the kitchen downstairs, Harry dear. Ginny, what have you been doing? Your hands are filthy."

 

"Tossing Dungbombs for Crookshanks," Ginny replies, straight-faced. "He loves playing with them."

 

"Fine. Go wash up." Ginny rolls her eyes and scuttles off. "Come along soon, you three," Mrs. Weasley says as she leaves, and they hear her stalking up the stairs, snapping, "Fred! George! Dinner! And don't you dare Apparate down there. Use the stairs like everyone else!"

 

The trek down the stairs is almost more eerie than before, now that Harry's seen so much life in this dead house. The elf heads watch him with lulling smiles. Patches of dust seem to re-form after they walk through them, as if no one was ever there. Hermione follows Harry's disturbed stare. "We've been cleaning this place for weeks, but I really don't think it wants us here. The dust is sentient…"

 

"Understatement of the century," Ron mutters.

 

Something smashes at the bottom of the stairs, and then Harry hears some of the most horrendous screaming of his life (which is saying something, because he's met both Aunt Petunia and Voldemort). "Mudbloods! Filth! Besmirching the house of my fathers—"

 

"Tonks!" Mrs. Weasley shouts, rushing past them.

 

"I'm sorry! It's that stupid umbrella stand—"

 

"Mrs. Weasley hates Tonks," Hermione tells Harry as the three of them edge past what Harry realizes is the shouting portrait of an old woman, the yellowing skin of her face pulled taut in her rage.

 

As they reach the door to the basement, it springs open, and a man bursts through. "Shut up, you old hag!" he shouts, his tangled black hair streaming behind him as he runs.

 

"You!" the portrait shrieks.

 

"Me," Sirius Black says and, with a flourish, forces her moth-eaten curtains shut.

 

"No one does it better," Fred says admiringly.

 

"Sirius," Harry says.

 

"Harry! There you are." Sirius throws an arm over Harry's shoulders and squeezes once before letting him go. "So happy you're here."

 

"Yeah," Harry says. Sirius is beaming at him. Harry can't muster up a comparable expression. "What is this place?" he asks. "I mean, where the hell did you find it? Who was that portrait of?"

 

Sirius grimaces. "My family's house. My old mum. Never thought I'd come back here, but Dumbledore needed a center of operations, and… well… poetic justice, I suppose."

 

"I'm starving," Ron says from behind them. "Keep moving, mate."

 

Sirius barks a laugh. "That's the spirit, Ron."

 

The basement kitchen is large and high-ceilinged. Pots and pans hang from hooks. A large cauldron of stew bubbles merrily over a roaring fire. Bill—Ron's oldest brother—supervises the clearing of the table, which is covered with parchments and bent quills and teacups. Hermione and Ginny begin taking out plates and cutlery, while the twins send a bread board—knife graciously included—flying across the room to land haphazardly in the middle of the table. "Fred! George! For heaven's sake, that could have killed someone! Why must you use magic for every little thing—"

 

"Sorry, mum, real sorry," they both say, heads bent in a show of contrition.

 

The smells and sounds are pleasant enough, but Harry is used to his own company and the quiet of his bedroom. He settles into a chair Sirius pulls out for him and closes his eyes, listening as the table is laid and the rest of the food is brought over. Tonks trips over a chair. Mrs. Weasley gives an annoyed huff. Bill vanishes his parchments. Everyone settles down to eat.

 

As Harry looks around, he notices an absence. Confused, he remembers Ron's awkward mention of Percy—the line of conversation Harry didn't pursue.

 

"Where's Percy?" he mouths to Sirius.

 

Sirius shakes his head. "There was some kind of falling out. Not my place to tell you."

 

He would ask Ron later, apologize for his ridiculousness. But right now, he can barely eat. The food is delicious, the best he's eaten in months. He picks at it.

 

Everyone's conversations are inane. There is no mention of what went on in the meeting. Tonks changes the shape of her nose for Ginny's and Hermione's amusement. Lupin and Bill talk in undertones. Fred, George, and Mundungus Fletcher—freshly divested of a foul-smelling pipe—whisper conspiratorially in a corner.

 

"So, what's it been like being here?" Harry asks Sirius.

 

Sirius sighs. "I haven't been able to go out. Dumbledore thought it was for the best."

 

"But you know what's been happening."

 

"Oh, sure. Can't do a damn thing to help. Sure, you've been out of the loop, but at least you could get out and stretch your legs, eh?"

 

"Yeah" is the only thing Harry can come up with. Maybe he should feel some sort of validation that Sirius is clearly unhappy with Dumbledore too, but all he actually feels is—

 

Overlooked.

 

"Harry," Sirius says after several moments.

 

"Hmm?" Harry lets his spoon drop.

 

"You're dying to know what's going on, aren't you?"

 

"Wouldn't you be?" Harry replies.

 

"I would." Sirius exchanges a look with Lupin, who agrees silently with whatever he's about to say. "Which is why…" He sighs, seemingly conflicted.

 

"What are you telling him?" Mrs. Weasley calls from across the table. The other conversations go quiet. "He's a child! They all are."

 

"Harry's gone through more than most adults, and certainly more than many in this room."

 

Although this mirrors his words from earlier, Harry wants him to stop. But, well, maybe finding out something would be worth everyone’s attention.

 

Ron, Hermione, Ginny, and the twins are drinking in Sirius's every word, all of them leaning forward over their empty plates. Molly sees this, frowning deeper still. "I suppose," she says with a heavy, weary sigh, "that I can't dictate what Harry and Hermione do. Naturally, they'll tell Ron everything. But—"

 

Ginny senses her mother's trajectory. "But Mum—"

 

"Bed, Ginny. You _are_ too young for this."

 

Ginny storms off, Mrs. Weasley following at a reasonable distance, so as not to antagonize her further. Harry almost wishes he could go with them.

 

"The one thing we can tell you," Lupin begins, "is that he's recruiting, as are we. It's all very hush-hush. I'm sure you've seen the Ministry's take."

 

"Like in the Daily Prophet," Hermione snorts. "They've been horrible to Harry!"

 

They have? He hadn't noticed…

 

"Yes," Lupin agrees. "Voldemort likely isn't behind any of that. Fudge has been doing well—terribly, rather—by himself."

 

"Voldemort definitely approves, whatever they've said," Harry says. Because why shouldn't he approve? Everyone except Sirius and Lupin starts.

 

"Smearing you and Dumbledore makes for a good distraction," Mr. Weasley adds. "And thus harder for us to convince anyone."

 

"But what is Voldemort planning?" Harry asks, because this is the only thing he cares to know.

 

"Right now," Sirius says mulishly, everyone else endeavoring to glare him into silence, "he's reconnoitering, getting as much information about how the world has changed as he can."

 

"That's it?"

 

"And he wants something," Sirius murmurs. "Something he didn't have last time."

 

"Like, a weapon?" Harry guesses, his voice ringing in the high-ceilinged room.

 

"That's enough," Mrs. Weasley says just inside the door, at the end of her rope. "They don't need to know any more."

 

Sirius assents with a bitter, "It's not like there's much more to know."

 

They all traipse upstairs. Ron yawns hugely as he settles onto his bed, the one nearest the window. Harry is left to turn out the lights. "Sorry I didn't ask you about Percy," he says.

 

"It's fine," Ron mutters. "He's a git, anyway. You don't really want to know."

 

"Sure I do. I'm your friend. I—"

 

CRACK!

 

Fred's and George's entrance puts a merciful end to the conversation; Harry listens as the three of them toss out theories on what the weapon could be, and slips off to sleep before the twins depart. His last thought is bleak: what if whatever Voldemort didn't have last time had to do with him?

 

In other circumstances, he would have slipped easily into dreams of cannon-headed beasts, but now…

 

Hushed darkness, a down mattress…

 

"Damn!" Harry says. He really thought these would stop when he slept elsewhere. What the hell is going on?


	4. Part I: 4

The darkened stone chamber hasn't changed a whit. The bed is just as comfortable, the darkness just as impenetrable, his silent companion the wizard just as taciturn.

 

"I… I thought these would end when I left Privet Drive!" It sounds silly and idealistic as he says it.

 

The wizard taps twice; a tad redundant, given where they lie.

 

"Everyone used to say I was lucky," Harry mutters. "I guess they're calling me mad now. My luck ran out, and I'm paying the universe interest."

 

A statement like that probably isn't worthy of a response, and the wizard doesn't offer one.

 

Harry turns his back on the wizard and burrows deep under the blankets.

 

When his dreams morph into something a bit more normal—and less than comforting, he can only remember a single question, repeated with grasping intensity: _Where are they keeping him now?_

 

His scar is twinging as Fred wakes them with shouts of, "Living dust and doxies wait for no one!"

 

"But it's Sunday," Ron moans. "Can't we have a bit of a lie-in?"

 

"You want Mum in here?" Fred retorts. "She's on a roll this morning, Ronnikins. Threw water on George and me. I could do that for you, too, if you like. Quite refreshing, if you know what I mean."

 

"Bloody fuck no!"

 

"It's really easy," Fred says, affecting a wounded sort of disappointment. "I just swish my wand like so and say—"

 

"Okay, okay." Ron rolls out of bed with a speed that is frankly impressive. Harry follows suit, far more sedately.

 

The house's pulp horror vibe is crystallized by the cavernous drawing room. The ragged, dust-infested carpet. The faintly buzzing curtains. The humming from the half-collapsed sofa. The ancient house-elf, apparent kin to the taxidermies, who wanders in, mumbling obscenities.

 

"Mudbloods and filth. Oh, what would my mistress say?" He gives the room at large a disdainful glare and ambles out again.

 

"He'll be back," Ron says darkly.

 

"Is he always so—?” Harry begins.

 

"He always does that," Ron confirms. "Don't know why Sirius doesn't just throw him out. He's certifiable!"

 

"Stop that, Ron," Hermione snaps.

 

"It's not like he cares, Hermione," Ron says. "She's still going on about spew, you know," he adds quietly to Harry.

 

"It's not spew, Ronald. It's the Society for the Promotion of Elfish Welfare!" With that, she stomps off to join Ginny, who is idly fiddling with the spray bottles Mrs. Weasley left behind when she went off to acquire cloths.

 

Harry edges back from Ron. "Did you really have to be so…" He trails off, not quite sure how to go on. Because if this is what Hermione's put up with all summer… he's still annoyed at her.

 

"It's not a big deal," Ron replies. "You know. It's Hermione. She's always on about things like this."

 

To Harry's relief, Mrs. Weasley chooses that precise moment to bustle back with a basket of freshly laundered cleaning cloths. "Gather round now," she says. "Take a bottle of Doxiecide and tie one of these around your faces, like this." She demonstrates.

 

"Mrs. Weasley?" Hermione asks, a bit hesitant.

 

"Yes, dear?"

 

"Wouldn't it be reasonable to have a day off?" The twins bow behind Mrs. Weasley's back. "We've been cleaning without a break all week, and Harry only just got here."

 

"A day off?" Mrs. Weasley says, staring at her in some measure of confusion. "A day off?" Her confusion melts away; Harry cannot quite interpret the expression that is left behind, not in so many words, anyway. But he knows what it means, and he understands too well.

 

"It's all right, Mrs. Weasley," he says hurriedly, taking a bottle of Doxiecide and getting into position. "It's either this or half-assing summer homework, right, Ron?"

 

Ron grumbles and takes a bottle of his own. Hermione does likewise, resigned.

 

After the curtains have been reclaimed, Mrs. Weasley directs their attention to the sofa. "What's in there?" Hermione wonders, nervously stepping behind Ron. Harry, equally nervous, ducks his head.

 

"Sounds like puffskeins to me," Ginny says, her eyes gleaming. "Haven't either of you seen any?"

 

"In books," Hermione replies quickly.

 

"Ah, well they're nothing to worry about," Ginny assures them, reaching a hand out to lift a cushion.

 

"Don't, Ginny," her mother says, pushing her gently out of the way and Levitating the cushion. "You should not touch any of these puffskeins. There's no telling where they've been." Beneath the cushion are a collection of yellow-ish balls of fluff, who begin squeaking in agitation at the disturbance.

 

Ginny droops. "But mum, I never had one! Only Ron did."

 

Mrs. Weasley shakes her head. "Not this again." The squeaking puffballs end up in a bucket of their own, next to the lethargic doxies.

 

"I had a brilliant name picked out," Ginny says, stamping her foot.

 

"What's that, Gin?" George asks distractedly.

 

"Hufflefluff!"

 

"Cute," Fred says. "I'm sure you'll have a chance to use it." When Harry looks over at the puffskein bucket a few minutes later, it has disappeared without a trace. Mrs. Weasley doesn't notice.

 

Sirius wanders in around lunchtime, carrying a bloodstained bag. "I was feeding Buckbeak," he says in answer to the rather disgusted silence that greets him. "Molly, Dung's brought those contraband cauldrons by. Don’t know if you—"

 

"He won't be keeping them here," she snaps and hurries off to intercept him.

 

"How are you, Harry?" The others are eating sandwiches, or, in the case of Fred and George, dissecting a dead doxie they pilfered—one of many, Harry guesses, based on the bulging of their pockets.

 

"Good," Harry replies glibly.

 

"Glad to hear that." Sirius nods, then nods again, vigorously. "I really didn't want to come back here. Vowed I never would, back in the day."

 

"Bad memories?"

 

"You could say that." There's an old tapestry hanging prominently on a wall by itself. Sirius leads him closer. THE ANCIENT AND MOST NOBLE HOUSE OF BLACK is emblazoned across the top. "Entire Black family tree is on here, except the ones my dear mother burned off. Me, for one. My cousin Andromeda—Tonk's mum. Worst among blood traitors, she is, for marrying a Muggle-born."

 

Harry's mind wanders as Sirius describes the rest of the names. For a man who claims to hate his family so, Sirius is happily expansive.

 

Harry's attention snaps back when he hears his dad's name. "What?"

 

"Ran away from home when I was sixteen and crashed at your dad's place," Sirius says. "Great people, your grandparents. Wish you could have known them."

 

Harry usually tries not to think about such things. It's easier.  Hurts less. "Yeah," he chokes. "Me, too."

 

There is more shouting from downstairs. Sirius's mum rouses again, and he rushes out to restore the peace. Harry relaxes and rejoins the others.

 

"Oh, do we have plans for this," George whispers to him, waving the doxie.

 

"What sorts of things are you working on?" Harry asks, because it's the proper thing to say and because he is… moderately curious.

 

"Skiving Snackboxes," Fred says gleefully. "Sweets that make you sick if you eat one end, then make you feel better instantly when you eat the other."

 

"Brilliant," Harry allows.

 

"Of course,” George agrees. "We invented them."

 

"Still in the testing stages," Fred laments. "Haven't got a few things quite right with the Nosebleed Nougat… Can't get the bleeding to stop."

 

"Keep at it," Harry says heartily, almost meaning it.

 

Mrs. Weasley and Sirius return together, although it appears to be by coincidence rather than design. While the two of them exchange glowers, Kreacher flits back in, his face set in concentration.

 

"Right," Mrs. Weasley announces. "We'll be emptying these cabinets here."

 

"The Blood Traitors won't, won't, won't," Kreacher contradicts.

 

"Oh, yes they will," Sirius retorts.

 

Kreacher pretends not to have heard.

 

The scratched, glass-fronted cabinets are full of disturbing trinkets Harry has never had cause to imagine. A snuffbox with fangs; a vial of blood; tarnished goblets that Sirius throws aside roughly without a second glance. Kreacher whimpers.

 

Everyone's boredom is palpable. Ginny attempts to slip out after the first cabinet is emptied. Mrs. Weasley calls her back, clucking her tongue. "The sooner we do this, the happier we'll all be."

 

"Sure, mum." Ginny tosses the last goblet hard enough that it misses the basket they're discarding everything in by several feet.

 

Fred and George whistle. "You'd make a good Chaser, if you were into Quidditch," Fred observes.

 

"Interesting thought," she replies shortly.

 

The second cabinet is more of the same, although a music box sends them all into stupors, and they are saved only by George's hand flopping onto the lid.

 

"Music enchantments?" Hermione wonders, shaking her head blearily. "Can I keep it?"

 

"Best not," Sirius says, and George tosses it in with all the rest. Harry sees Hermione pocket it when everyone else's backs are turned.

 

"What's this, Sirius?" Ginny is swinging a large silver locket by its chain.

 

Sirius takes it from her. "I have no idea," he says after a moment. "Another 'heirloom' that came from Merlin knows where, because I sure don't." He tries to open it and cannot. "Anyone else want to try?"

 

"I do," Ron says, eagerly holding out his hand. His luck is no better. He passes it along.

 

Mrs. Weasley purses her lips. "You were so unwilling to help me earlier, and now you insist on dragging it out?"

 

"Give it a try, mum," Fred urges. "There are, you know, mum things that you do."

 

"Oh, bother." She takes the locket. "Considering that's a snake on the front, I don't think we want it to open, even if one of you figures out how."

 

When the locket reaches Harry, he lets the fine chain slide through his fingers. There is a catch, a whisper at the edge of his senses. The emeralds inlaid on its silver face glitter. He should recognize this feeling, whatever it is. But—

 

Harry lets the locket go. It ends up in the bin with the other trinkets. No one remarks about it further.

 

"No!" Kreacher wails, rushing at the basket as the locket is dropped in. "No! Master is a bad, bad wizard!"

 

"Go clean somewhere other than here," Sirius orders. "And don't take anything out of _that_ when no one's looking." Kreacher tries to resist, his mouth opening and closing soundlessly, one of his hands straining against an invisible barrier above the bin, his bloodshot eyes blazing. Then he droops—from his pointed ears to his rounded shoulders and even to the frayed ends of the old towel he wears—and slinks away.

 

Bile rises in Harry's throat. Kreacher is nothing like Dobby, it's true. But he cannot convince himself for a moment that taking these prized possessions away from him is justified.

 

Harry glances over at Hermione, who has a hand pressed over her mouth. She catches his eye. Let's help him, he mouths.

 

She blinks. Okay.

 

"Well, I think we can call it a day," Mrs. Weasley announces, giving the drawing room a critical once-over. Her children cheer. Harry looks around, too. The curtains hang damp and heavy, with daylight able to make itself known through the sparkling window. The glass of the cabinets gleams, which stand lonely in their emptiness. Sirius's bag of rats still occupies its chair. Mrs. Weasley glares at it, and Sirius picks it up with a huff.

 

"The only thing left now is whatever's holed up in that writing desk," she concludes.

 

"Boggart, probably," Sirius says.

 

"Yes," she agrees. "But the other things we've run across lead me to believe that I'd rather wait until Mad-Eye can have a look."

 

"Good idea," Sirius replies easily. They give each other uncomfortably effusive farewells ("It's been wonderful working with you today." "Yeah. Let's do this again tomorrow!") and walk opposite directions down the corridor, Mrs. Weasley balancing the basket of trinkets on her hip.

 

The rest of the Weasleys hurry toward the stairs to go do god only knows what. "Are you coming?" Ron shoots over his shoulder.

 

"Give us a bit." Hermione drags Harry by the hand into an alcove where the dust has given up and blown elsewhere. "So, what are we going to do?"

 

"Get Kreacher the things he cares most about," he suggests, regretting this idea deeply.

 

She shudders. "I don't fancy asking him," she maintains. "He wouldn't tell either of us anything and would insult our parentage." A trickle of dust sprinkles back into the alcove, liberally coating Hermione's hair. "Oh for heaven's sake, not again!" She shakes her head fruitlessly. "The dust is as blood purist as the portraits. I hate it here, Harry." Her eyes are bright.

 

He hesitantly pats her shoulder.

 

They find the discarded trinkets in the corner of the entrance hall. Kreacher crouches next to them, teeth bared. "Mudblood and Half-Blood, tracking their dirt across my mistress's floors," he mutters as they approach.

 

Hermione crosses her arms and clicks her tongue. "You want those, don't you?" she asks with a valiant—though not entirely successful—attempt at friendliness.

 

"The Mudblood is talking to Kreacher. Kreacher is pretending he does not hear."

 

"Do you want any of this or not?" Harry snaps, gesturing to the basket.

 

"Oh, Kreacher wants, but he cannot take."

 

"Right," Harry says and savagely kicks the basket over. Silver goblets roll, one dragging the locket—the chain tangled about its stem—along with it. Kreacher's eyes light up. "Stupid, clumsy Half-Blood boy." He snaps his fingers, and he and the trinkets vanish with a crack.

 

The two of them just stare at each other. "That was… brilliant, Harry," Hermione says, the corners of her mouth twitching.

 

"You think he's grateful to us?" Harry asks.

 

Hermione grimaces. "That isn't important, Harry. We're encroaching on what has always been for a specific sort of Purebloods, and he will continue to resent it."

 

As he's formulating a response, the front door springs open, startling both of them. "Wotcher, Harry, Hermione!" Tonks says brightly, bounding inside, her hair the same bubblegum pink from the previous night. "What are you up to?"

 

"Nothing," they say together—too quickly.

 

"Okay." She winks and heads down to the basement, whistling merrily.

 

"Is there a meeting tonight?" Harry wonders when she's gone.

 

"No. She enjoys spending time here." Hermione runs her fingers through her dusty curls. "I can't imagine why. I'm going to wash up. Again." She stalks up the stairs, several of the portraits grumbling in her wake.

 

Harry's dreams that night are oddly comforting. The wizard is as quiet as usual and asks no questions. Harry rather likes that about him.

 

"Have you ever been in an old, previously uninhabited Wizarding house?" Harry asks, because what else is there to talk about?

 

The wizard seems to consider, then taps once with little vehemence.

 

"The one we're in would like us to leave," Harry goes on. "I couldn't agree more."

 

A huff. If the wizard could speak, Harry guesses it would have been akin to "ah."

 

"Yeah," Harry sighs.

 

*

 

A dress robe moldering in an ancient wardrobe tries to strangle Ron the next afternoon.

 

"Relashio!" Sirius intones calmly, and the robe flops into a sullen heap at Ron's feet, faintly twitching. Harry, Ginny, and the twins roar with laughter.

 

"Hey!" Ron splutters. "That thing could've killed me!"

 

"It didn't, though," Fred chortles. "Therefore, it is hilarious. Oh Ronnikins, that robe was meant for you."

 

"You should introduce it to the ashes of your ol' pal, yeah?" George adds. "Put it in its place."

 

"Oh, don't!" Hermione says, indignant. "That wasn't his fault."

 

"It's all right, Hermione," George consoles. "We bought him new dress robes a month ago. No hard feelings, right, Ron?"

 

"I hate you," Ron mumbles. He kicks the crumpled robes aside. Harry, Ginny, and Sirius exchange glances.

 

*

 

At dinner the night before the hearing, everyone lobs advice at Harry too quickly—and loudly and with many unnecessary asides and several simultaneous arguments—for him to catch.

 

"They honestly can't expel you," Hermione says for the billionth time, her brown cheeks acquiring a rosy tinge in her frustration. "Self-defense is a reasonable exception.”

 

"Keep calm and stick to the truth," Lupin says—with relative mildness.

 

"Amelia Bones is fair," Mr. Weasley assures Harry. "She'll hear you out." Sitting opposite Harry, a platinum-blonde Tonks (disturbingly Malfoy-like) gives a double thumbs-up, her face pink.

 

"Stay calm," Sirius says. "Deep breaths. Any ideas you might have for pranking the questioners should, regrettably, be put off to a later date."

 

"I dunno," George says. "That could help him. They already think he's a nutter."

 

"George!" Mrs. Weasley barks.

 

"Sorry, Mum. I was only trying to lighten the mood."

 

Harry takes in perhaps half this exchange, confused as he is by Sirius's jest. He's never had an idea for a prank in his life (except where Malfoy is concerned, maybe).

 

*

 

As he paces the chamber, Harry wonders if he will wake well-rested or if he will feel like he has, in fact, paced through the night. And if it's the latter, his hearing will be…

 

He paces some more.

 

The wizard taps once in apparent inquiry.

 

"I could be expelled from Hogwarts tomorrow," Harry says by way of explanation. "I don't know what I'll do if that happens. I won't be able to defend myself from You-Know-Who. I don't have anywhere to go." Mostly true. Sirius had said he could stay with him, all eager and uncomfortably anticipatory. Somehow he doubts Dumbledore would allow it… and he doesn’t know if he disagrees. But the wizard—real or imaginary—probably doesn't care to hear any of this.

 

The wizard slides off the bed, steps up behind him, then stops. Harry stiffens, suddenly wary. The wizard's hand comes to rest lightly on his shoulder, then ghosts upward to wrap loosely about his throat. There is the same—overwhelming—sensation from the other night that Harry cannot categorize, the one that just is—

 

"Are you… Are you going to kill me?" Well, he thinks, it's about time something exciting happened around here. (Only a dream, only a dream, Harry chants.)

 

The wizard is still. Harry, afraid to upset the tenuous reprieve, makes an effort to not so much as twitch. His heartbeat ratchets up; the wizard can feel it, where one of his fingers brushes Harry's pulse point. The moment stretches on, immeasurable, unending.

 

"Do you want to kill me?" Harry whispers hoarsely. His knees have locked, and his breathing is shallow. Why did he ask that? No answer the wizard is likely to give—according to the ever-impractical rules of dream logic, at least—will be comforting.

 

 _Yes_. Quick and decisive against Harry's Adam's apple. (Er, bloody hell.) Then the wizard's hands drop to his shoulders, and he is steered roughly back to the bed. The wizard lets him go and retreats to his half. The message is clear enough.

 

Harry obligingly lays down and rolls onto his side, as close to the edge as he can get. It takes several moments for the patter of his heart to slow. Mercifully, there are no more movements from the wizard: not a rustle nor an audible breath.

 

He has to tell someone about these dreams, Harry decides, as he slips off into proper sleep. Because the wizard may not stop the next time.

 

(Only a dream, only a dream…)


	5. Part I: 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is the last of what I had written. I'm so sorry to abandon it again. I guess this isn't the tale I wanted to tell.

Harry wakes suddenly in the dark of predawn, Mrs. Weasley standing over him. "Time to get up, dear," she whispers. Ron gives a loud, grunting snort, but remains soundly asleep, one of his long arms dangling off the side of his bed.

 

"Come down for breakfast in a few moments, Harry," Mrs. Weasley tells him gently, setting a freshly-laundered shirt and trousers on Harry's side of the scratched, hulking dresser. He recognizes neither of them, but she leaves before he can ask to whom they belong.

 

Harry dresses slowly in the strange clothes, which fit him unexpectedly well and comfortably. His stomach roils at the thought of food. Ron's contented snores in the background remind him of the wizard's threat to strangle him, and his nausea deepens. The shadows in the bedroom's dusty corners writhe. He shuts his eyes tight against them and rushes through the remainder of his preparations. When he's finished, and too soon, he makes his way quickly down the creaking stairs.

 

Four people—more than he wanted, certainly—sit amiably around the kitchen table as Harry enters. Tonks has her head propped on her hand, yawning wide, jaw-cracking yawns. "I was up all night," she says, her elbow pushing a cup of tea perilously close to the table’s edge. Her hair is a nondescript brown today, falling messily over her ears. "My turn to watch, you know." She yawns again.

 

To watch? Harry thinks sluggishly as he perches upon the chair nearest the door. To watch what? Given the Fidelius Charm on this house, he doesn't think it's him.

 

Sirius and Lupin are cloistered together at the opposite end, a _Daily Prophet_ stretched between their untouched plates of eggs. Harry can just see the edge of the front page: half of Dumbledore's face, blue eye still twinkling, hand waving without a care.

 

"He's off the Wizengamot officially," Lupin announces. "Lost the reinstatement vote 65 to 6, with a couple abstentions."

 

"Bollocks," Tonks says.

 

Mrs. Weasley, coming around the table with a plate of toast and eggs in her hands, purses her lips in distaste but makes no remark. She sets the plate in front of Harry with an unexpectedly loud thud. Mr. Weasley, drinking coffee and fiddling idly with a tangle of wire, starts. "Sorry, Arthur," she says. He blinks tiredly at her and goes back to fiddling.

 

Harry eats little. The toast is too dry (or he just can't swallow) and has no discernible flavor. He puts it down decisively. He daren't attempt the eggs—his stomach gives a lurch at the thought, although they smell delicious.

 

Mrs. Weasley pulls up a chair behind him and begins working over his hair with water and a comb. It's oddly soothing; he focuses on the coolness of the water and the gentle tugging of her fingers and can briefly ignore his nerves. "Doesn't it ever lie flat?" she sighs after a moment.

 

"No," Harry mutters.

 

"James's didn't, either," Sirius says brightly. "He made it even messier to impress all the girls, but it was mostly just for Lily. She didn't care, of course." He smiles wistfully.

 

Hermione comes in then, wearing slippers and a dressing gown, her eyes puffy with exhaustion. "Oh, good, you haven't left yet," she says in relief. "I was afraid I'd miss you." Harry has never been happier to see her.

 

"Just in time," Mr. Weasley says. "We need to go in about…" He checks his watch. “five minutes."

 

So soon? Hermione looks at him reassuringly. "Not to belabor the point, but everything is going to be fine, Harry." She is too vehement, her words gone unnaturally high-pitched.

 

"Right," he says. "I know." He doesn't.

 

"All right," Mr. Weasley announces, less than five minutes later. "We best leave now, Harry."

 

"Oh," Harry says tremulously. "Cool. Wish me luck, then."

 

"Good luck!" they all chorus enthusiastically, Tonks giving him a thumbs-up, Hermione a half-hug.

 

"We would do side-along Apparition," Mr. Weasley says as the two of them are walking to the nearest tube station, "but they're looking for any excuse to make you as miserable as possible today, so the Muggle way it is. Oh dear," he adds as Harry tenses. "That didn't help with your nerves, did it? Sorry about that."

 

Harry musters a chuckle.

 

For the sake of saving time, it is left to Harry to buy their tickets. He's never done it before, but Mr. Weasley's flustered excitement over the prospect of exchanging pounds for services is far from timely. The ticket seller watches them avidly from behind her window, as though they are the single-most interesting thing to happen during her entire career. "Have a good day," she says, handing Harry the tickets, her smirk somewhere between pitying and suggestive. He glares back halfheartedly.

 

The awkwardness of the exchange blessedly escapes Mr. Weasley's notice. He bounces from foot to foot as they await their train. When it pulls up to the platform, he leads the way aboard with a spring in his step, earning strained smiles from the other people boarding. The ride passes slowly, with Mr. Weasley ticking off each stop. "Four more to go, now three… this is us, Harry." Harry wouldn't have minded if they'd missed it and kept going, all the way to the end of the line.

 

"Here's the visitor's entrance," Mr. Weasley proclaims, directing Harry toward an out-of-order phone booth not far from the station's exit.

 

"Are you sure?" Harry asks. He points at the sign.

 

"Absolutely sure." They squeeze inside, and Mr. Weasley dials a few numbers on the receiver that Harry doesn't catch.

 

"This entrance is out of order," a breezy voice says. "Visitors are not permitted. Please use the main 'employees only' entrance."

 

"Well all be damned," Mr. Weasley murmurs, a little put out. "That wasn't supposed to happen."

 

"What do we do now?" Harry asks.

 

Mr. Weasley looks grim. "Really don't think you're going to like it."

 

He's right. Harry strenuously dislikes it. From the out-of-order phone booth, they end up at an out-of-order public toilet—there's clearly a theme here. "You want me to do what?"

 

"Just step in the bowl and pull the chain, Harry." Mr. Weasley pushes open the door to a stall for him. "You'll pop out of a fireplace in the Atrium." His tone is light, but there is an undercurrent of something that sets Harry's teeth on edge. "I have no idea what we'll find there, but you can't miss your hearing under any circumstances."

 

Harry slowly, slowly steps into the bowl and pulls the chain, then spirals feet-first to his doom. In other circumstances, he would have enjoyed the novelty of the experience. It's the same sort of stomach-dropping thrill that comes with shallow dives. But—

 

Harry tumbles out of a fireplace and lands painfully on his knees, his glasses nearly slipping off his nose onto a gleaming, far too polished wooden floor. He catches them, ending up almost flat on his stomach in the process. "All right there, Harry?" Mr. Weasley asks, emerging from the adjacent fireplace without tripping and helping Harry to his feet, roughly brushing him off. Harry gazes moodily up at a peacock-blue ceiling that has a number of strange, shifting, golden symbols and wonders why these things happen to him.

 

"You'll wait in my office until your hearing starts. Gives you some time to— good Lord!" Mr. Weasley stops so suddenly that Harry plows into him, almost causing them both to face-plant.

 

"Well," Mr. Weasley says weakly. "I'd say we know why they closed the visitor’s entrance."

 

In front of a large fountain at the hall's very center, tall enough that they nearly block a collection of towering—and horrifically rendered—statues from view, stand a troll and what Harry takes to be a half-giant. A group of scarlet-robed Aurors and representatives from the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures—according to their badges—surrounds them, hands on their wands.

 

"Oh, please," the troll says, their words somewhat halting yet unmistakable. "My companion and I are unarmed and wish only to be heard."

 

"How did you get in here?" an Auror with grizzled tawny hair that puts Harry in mind of a lion's mane demands, his eyes hard.

 

"We've already been over that," the half-giant replies reasonably. "Will you allow us to speak to the Minister?"

 

"The Minister is a busy man," one of the Creature Department wizards replies. "You can speak with me after you've made an appointment."

 

"We've tried. Our multiple requests have been ignored," the troll says.

 

Around the hall, Ministry employees watch the exchange with rapt attention, rooted in place by the spectacle. Harry, so fascinated by the events, has almost forgotten why he's here.

 

"Nothing to see here, folks! Move along!" an Auror with a long ponytail shouts suddenly, startling the silent crowd. The people stream around the fountain, all of them walking with inordinate slowness. Harry can relate. As they pass closer to the statues' plinth, he can make out the forms of a wizard and a witch, surrounded by a centaur, goblin, and house-elf—all three of whom gaze up at the witch and wizard with uncharacteristic awe. A sign above the fountain reads: “THE FOUNTAIN OF magical”— then the last word is crossed out and replaced with a disproportionately large “SUBJUGATION.” Somehow, this seems perfectly accurate. Hermione would have loved to see this. Harry can't wait to tell her, then remembers with a jolt what may be about to happen to him.

 

Mr. Weasley plucks at Harry's sleeve and draws him out of the bustle toward a set of golden gates, and they approach a security desk at which a balding man sits, his newspaper and coffee abandoned for the spectacle taking place before him.

 

"Eric!" Mr. Weasley hisses.

 

Eric jumps. "What? Oh, hello, Arthur. Who's this? Where is his visitor's badge?" His eyes drift upward inevitably to Harry's scar, and he blinks. "Well, in that case… give me your wand, Mr. Potter. Suppose I could make up a visitor's badge? No, no, that might create more problems than it solves for me. Might help you, though." He continues to mutter nervously to himself as Harry passes over his wand, thinking unhappily that this could be the last time it will be given back, for the next time he gives it to someone could see it snapped.

 

Eric places Harry's wand on a brass scale, which produces a piece of parchment from its base. "Holly and phoenix feather, eleven inches, been in use for four years. Is that correct?"

 

Harry nods shakily, taking back his proffered wand, relieved the scale mentioned nothing about it having a twin—not that it would have, but still. Since Priori Incantatem— well, he hasn't told anyone.

 

"I keep this," Eric says, storing the slip of parchment in a drawer. "Good luck. You'll need it." He turns back to the fascinating dispute, where the troll and half-giant are now being led away at wand point, protesting vociferously all the while.

 

Mr. Weasley ushers Harry through the golden grilles of a lift, onto which several other people have crammed. Harry brushes his bangs over his scar, hoping none of them recognize him.

 

"What in Merlin's name is going on?" a man cradling a strangely sputtering box asks. "I've never in all my years seen trolls do anything like that."

 

"Speak up for themselves, you mean?" a brown-haired witch at his shoulder says wryly. Harry wonders vaguely if she might be a reporter; she has the same sort of focused expression as Rita Skeeter—who, thanks to Hermione's brilliance, is not currently writing anything.

 

"Nah," the man says, his box giving a horrifying gurgle. "Having anything of interest to say."

 

"What's in the box, Bob?" Mr. Weasley asks a little wildly.

 

"No idea, Arthur. A cross between a chicken and some sort of lizard. Breathes fire." Bob pinches his nose. "But I'm glad I'm not the one who has to deal with trolls and half-breeds."

 

They pass through the deserted Auror Headquarters on the way to Mr. Weasley's office. “Was supposed to meet Kingsley here," Mr. Weasley muses quietly, outside a cubicle decorated with several posters of Sirius’s face. "But I'm sure I'll find him later." They continue past the rest of the deserted cubicles and into an office smaller than a broom cupboard.

 

"Has anything like that ever happened before?" Harry asks, perching on a cluttered chair behind Mr. Weasley's partner's buried desk.

 

"No." A purple paper airplane rockets through the open door. Bemusedly, Mr. Weasley catches it and unfolds it with a grimace. "Another exploding public toilet in Bethnal Green? What on earth?" Another airplane speeds in behind the first and hits him squarely in the forehead. "Can't imagine that'll get any press next to the—" He reads the second missive and blanches.

 

"What's wrong?" Harry asks faintly.

 

"Time and place of your hearing have changed," Mr. Weasley replies in a daze. "It starts right now! We've got to run."

 

Harry's heart leaps into his throat. He swallows thickly. They race back through the silent Auror department, past a bedraggled wizard eyeing a lopsided torch bracket, and onto the lift. Mr. Weasley pounds the button for the bottom floor. “Come on, come on!" he mutters.

 

The corridor just outside the lift strikes Harry as oddly familiar, though he can't place where he's seen it. The walls are bare, damp stone. A solid black door stands closed at the end. They turn left when they reach it, their footsteps echoing down a narrow staircase. "Through there, I believe," Mr. Weasley says, gesturing at a door hung with a tarnished brass _ten_.

 

"Oh, okay. Are you coming with—?”

 

"No, no, I'm not allowed. Good luck!" And Mr. Weasley opens the heavy wooden door.

 

"You're late," an icy voice announces as Harry pushes his way into the cavernous, dungeon-like courtroom. His heart pounds heavily enough that surely they can hear it where they all sit. His feet feel weighed down with each step.

 

"And where is your visitor's badge?" an unfamiliar, flittery, feminine voice asks. He looks up, but the speaker is in shadow.

 

"I couldn't get one." Harry's voice cracks. He clears his throat awkwardly.

 

Harry recognizes this room from his inadvertent adventure through Dumbledore's Pensieve back in June, and his throat closes up at the thought of the people whose trials he’d witnessed. Rabid Death Eaters, Barty Crouch, Jr., a nervous Bagman…

 

"Well, why couldn't you get one?" It's the first speaker again, who sits perched at the far end of one of the lower benches, several rolls of parchment spread out before him, a quill clutched in his fingers, a faint splotch of ink on his nose.

 

"Percy?" Harry asks. He sort of remembers something about a promotion, but he didn't expect—

 

"Answer the question properly, Potter, and sit down. We're pressed for time." Cornelius Fudge leans forward, flushed and rumpled, his signature bowler hat missing.

 

"The visitor's entrance was closed, sir," Harry says.

 

"Weasley, check on that!" Fudge barks.

 

Percy pulls a purple memo from a clipboard and peruses it. "It's true, Minister. 'The visitor's entrance has been closed due to the presence of—'”

 

Fudge cuts him off and purses his thick lips. "That would do it," he says, almost to himself. "Be that as it may, Potter, there is still a one galleon fine you will need to pay when you leave."

 

There are a few murmurs of protest from the assembled Wizengamot, or what Harry assumes to be the Wizengamot, based on the silver Ws worked into their robes. They fill the first few rows, arranged precisely as they were in Dumbledore's memory. And, also like Dumbledore's memory, a chair with chains wound about the arms stands waiting for him. What the hell?

 

"Sit, Mr. Potter. You don't want to keep the entire Wizengamot waiting. Or the Minister. He's a busy man," the witch whom Harry still hasn't seen snaps.

 

Harry's head darts from the chair to the audience to the door. He could make a break for it. With all the chaos upstairs, they might decide they have higher priorities than expelling Harry Potter from Hogwarts. ("Don't even think about it, Harry," Hermione says in the clearest, most logical part of his mind. "You'll only make things worse.")

 

He sits. The chair is hard. The chains slither threateningly but do not bind him. Small mercies that do little to improve this nightmare.

 

"Very good. Now that the accused has deigned to grace us with his presence, we can _finally_ get started." Fudge shuffles some parchments, dropping one. He dives after it, upsetting the rest. There are a few titters in the upper rows. Fudge resurfaces, his face flaming.

 

Harry crosses his arms and waits for Fudge to resituate his notes. What is going on? They'd said only Amelia Bones would be doing the questioning. And she's here, all right, to Fudge's left: an imposing woman with cropped gray hair and a monocle, who's studying Harry impassively, though without detectable hostility. Fudge and the figure in shadow to his right, however, practically ooze it.

 

"Disciplinary hearing of the ninth of August, into offenses committed under the Decree for the Reasonable Restriction for Underage Sorcery and the Statute of Secrecy by Harry James Potter. Interrogators: Cornelius Fudge, Minister of Magic; Amelia Bones, head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement; Dolores Umbridge, Senior Undersecretary to the Minister." The witch to Fudge's right leans forward just far enough that Harry can see her clearly. She is small and squat, and her smile is wide enough that he is sure she wants to swallow him whole.

 

The door opens with a horrible grating sound, and Fudge's recitation blessedly stops. Dumbledore strides in, midnight-blue robes flowing impressively behind him. "Witness for the Defense," he intones, "Albus Percival Wulfric Brian…"

 

Huh, Harry thinks vaguely, that is one hell of a name.

 

“…Dumbledore.”

 

Ah.

 

Dumbledore sweeps past him without a glance and conjures a chair. "I do hope I haven't missed anything important."

 

Madam Bones snorts. The Wizengamot members stir, some leaning forward eagerly, others scowling.

 

"Dumbledore!" Fudge says blankly. "You—you received the notification of the change of time and venue, I take it?" The squat witch narrows her eyes and recedes back into shadow.

 

"By a happy accident, I arrived here several hours early." Dumbledore spreads his hands. "Quite the excitement you had going on upstairs, wouldn't you say, Cornelius?" He smiles.

 

"Did you plan that— that ridiculousness?" Fudge sputters.

 

"No, no." Dumbledore raises a bushy silver brow. "But I question your choice of 'ridiculousness'. Down here, questioning a teenage boy without any sort of advocate present, is a truly ridiculous spectacle."

 

Fudge grits his teeth. "But—"

 

"I have as much idea of what's going on as you do," Dumbledore says over him.

 

“Enough!" Fudge says decisively, rallying. "We need to finish reading these charges so we can expel this boy!"

 

"May the court note the Minister's bias," Dumbledore says. Bones inclines her head. Percy scribbles, more ink spattering his nose.

 

"Oh, for heaven's sake!" Fudge sighs. "I just want to see justice carried out."

 

To Harry's relief, Madam Bones slowly shakes her head, while several Wizengamot members give him extremely dubious looks. Fudge ignores them and begins reading monotonously through a list of charges. Harry, trying diligently not to get lost in his worry, catches only bits of them: words like "Paragraph C" and "Section 13" and then "What happened on the night of August second?"

 

"What?"

 

Fudge opens his mouth to repeat the question, but Madam Bones beats him to it. "What happened on the evening of August second, Mr. Potter? In your own words."

 

Harry wipes his too-moist palms on his legs, glances over at Dumbledore, who sits peaceably twiddling his thumbs. No help there. Harry takes a deep breath, lets it go.

 

"Any day now, Potter," Fudge mutters.

 

"My cousin and I were walking home from—from the park. We got into an argument. He punched me. I dropped my wand. Then the—then the dementors appeared—"

 

"Dementors? In Little Whinging?" Bones is horrified.

 

"Oh, don't be so surprised, Amelia," Fudge says scathingly. "This is just another one of Potter's cock-and-bull stories, invented to get him out of trouble."

 

"Cornelius!" she says sharply. "This entire affair was supposed to be under my department's jurisdiction. Refrain from harassing the accused further. Please go on, Mr. Potter."

 

Harry's confidence rises at her rebuke. "Okay. Er, the dementors went for both of us—"

 

"The _dementors_? How many were there?"

 

"Two, ma'am."

 

"All right." Bones nods for him to continue.

 

"Er, I found my wand where it dropped and cast my Patronus, and they went away."

 

"'My Patronus.' Have you cast one before, then?"

 

"Yes."

 

"A corporeal—that is to say—a Patronus with a clear form?"

 

"Yes. It's always a stag." He can't help the faint note of pride in his voice.

 

One of Bones's eyebrows goes up. "Impressive," she says. A few Wizengamot members mirror her surprise.

 

"That's beside the point!" Fudge snaps. "The more impressive the magic was, the worse it probably should be for him. Dementors in Little Whinging is an utterly preposterous claim."

 

"On the contrary, Cornelius," Dumbledore breaks in. "As I have told you repeatedly, the likelihood of events such as what Harry has so succinctly described has increased tenfold since Lord Voldemort's return." Cue flinches all round, not including Bones.

 

"This is beyond the scope of what we're doing here," Madam Bones announces. "Are we in agreement that dementors accosted Mr. Potter and his Muggle cousin?" She pauses, the lines about her mouth deepening. "His cousin, incidentally, would have been aware of magic beforehand, so the charge of violating the Statute of Secrecy should be thrown out."

 

Oh, that would make sense, now wouldn't it?

 

"All in favor of dismissing the charge of violating Paragraph C of the Statute of Secrecy?" Fudge asks, looking as though a Christmas present has been taken from him before he could finish untying the bow. As far as Harry can tell, approval is unanimous.

 

"Fine. Good." Fudge lifts a hand to his hair, and, when his fingers do not meet his bowler hat, slams it back onto the rail in front of him. "There isn't a single witness for the presence of dementors, is there, boy?"

 

Harry starts to shake his head, but stops when Dumbledore abruptly stands. "There is a witness. I brought her with me. Shall I—?”

 

"Oh, very well. Weasley, bring in this purported witness, please." Percy scampers past, returning with an anxious Mrs. Figg.

 

As she gives her quavering, hesitant testimony, Harry watches Dumbledore. Dumbledore gazes fixedly ahead and never once acknowledges him.

 

Why—?

 

"A thoroughly unconvincing witness," Fudge says, and Harry realizes that Mrs. Figg has left in the time that he brooded. "I conclude that the boy lied."

 

"And I conclude that he did not," Bones sighs.

 

"And _I_ believe we should finish this quickly, so the half-breeds upstairs can be properly dealt with!" the witch to Fudge's right shrilly asserts.

 

"I've heard everything I need," Bones says firmly. "This hearing was called as a result of Mr. Potter's third time breaking the Reasonable Restriction for Underage Sorcery."

 

"But the other times weren't my fault—" Harry protests.

 

Bones wags a finger. "The Patronus he cast was, strange as it seems, justified, and I recommend no punishment."

 

"All in favor of dismissing the most recent charge of underage sorcery because of extenuating circumstances?" Fudge calls, looking like he's developed a toothache. From what Harry can guess, just over half the hands go up. And, well, that's enough, so he shouldn't complain, no matter how much not being believed stings.

 

Bones nods in satisfaction. "If there is any further underage magic on the part of Mr. Potter, he will be called for another disciplinary hearing."

 

"Very well," Fudge says. "Potter, you also still owe a one-galleon fine for failure to acquire a visitor's badge, which you may pay to my undersecretary directly."

 

"Yes, sir," Harry croaks. The squat witch is disgustingly smug. She holds out her hand to him, waggling her fingers. He fishes a galleon out of his nearly-empty coin purse and drops it into her palm.

 

"Thank you," she trills. "You'll know better next time, I'm sure."

 

Harry almost protests again but bites his tongue. He should be grateful, he supposes, that he hasn't been expelled, which is, oh, which is fine! (Except that he will have to attend another hearing like this one when he invariably has to defend himself outside school again, which is… not fine.)

 

"That concludes today's proceedings," Fudge says ungraciously. The Wizengamot members all begin filing from their benches. Dumbledore speeds through the door ahead of them, not even the barest word of congratulations for Harry.

 

"How'd it go?" Mr. Weasley asks as soon as Harry emerges.

 

"Dumbledore didn't—"

 

"No, he just sailed right past me." Mr. Weasley doesn't seem bothered overmuch by this.

 

"I'm not being expelled." He feels utterly wrung out. Sensing this, Mr. Weasley doesn't press further.

 

"Wriggled your way out yet again, eh, Potter?" someone drawls. Lucius Malfoy smirks over Mr. Weasley's shoulder, his disappointment almost tangible.

 

"No wriggling," Harry replies with a confidence dredged up from all the times he's put Draco in his place (since he's not remembering the graveyard or what he heard this man say there, not thinking about it, not anything to do with it). "I was justified in what I did."

 

"Hmm," Malfoy says, fingers tensing on the handle of his cane. "We'll see about that, boy." He turns his back on them with a toss of his gelled golden hair and joins an impatient Fudge.

 

"Merlin," Mr. Weasley says. "How I despise that man. He's been lurking out here since you went in."

 

Harry shudders. "Probably going to report to his master as soon as he finishes with Fudge."

 

"Probably so."


End file.
